Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 7

The set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land had now re­gained their dwelling, with­out hav­ing been obliged to reach it by the old open­ing, and were there­fore spared the trou­ble of ma­son’s work. It was cer­tain­ly lucky, that at the mo­ment they were about to set out to do so, the apes had been seized with that ter­ror, no less sud­den than in­ex­pli­ca­ble, which had driv­en them out of Gran­ite House. Had the an­imals dis­cov­ered that they were about to be at­tacked from an­oth­er di­rec­tion? This was the on­ly ex­pla­na­tion of their sud­den re­treat.

Dur­ing the day the bod­ies of the apes were car­ried in­to the wood, where they were buried; then the set­tlers bus­ied them­selves in re­pair­ing the dis­or­der caused by the in­trud­ers, dis­or­der but not dam­age, for al­though they had turned ev­ery­thing in the rooms top­sy-​turvy, yet they had bro­ken noth­ing. Neb re­light­ed his stove, and the stores in the larder fur­nished a sub­stan­tial repast, to which all did am­ple jus­tice.

Jup was not for­got­ten, and he ate with rel­ish some stonepine al­monds and rhi­zome roots, with which he was abun­dant­ly sup­plied. Pen­croft had un­fas­tened his arms, but judged it best to have his legs tied un­til they were more sure of his sub­mis­sion.

Then, be­fore re­tir­ing to rest, Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions seat­ed round their ta­ble, dis­cussed those plans, the ex­ecu­tion of which was most press­ing. The most im­por­tant and most ur­gent was the es­tab­lish­ment of a bridge over the Mer­cy, so as to form a com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the south­ern part of the is­land and Gran­ite House; then the mak­ing of an en­clo­sure for the mus­mons or oth­er wool­ly an­imals which they wished to cap­ture.

These two projects would help to solve the dif­fi­cul­ty as to their cloth­ing, which was now se­ri­ous. The bridge would ren­der easy the trans­port of the bal­loon case, which would fur­nish them with linen, and the in­hab­itants of the en­clo­sure would yield wool which would sup­ply them with win­ter clothes.

As to the en­clo­sure, it was Cyrus Hard­ing’s in­ten­tion to es­tab­lish it at the sources of the Red Creek, where the ru­mi­nants would find fresh and abun­dant pas­ture. The road be­tween Prospect Heights and the sources of the stream was al­ready part­ly beat­en, and with a bet­ter cart than the first, the ma­te­ri­al could be eas­ily con­veyed to the spot, es­pe­cial­ly if they could man­age to cap­ture some an­imals to draw it.

But though there might be no in­con­ve­nience in the en­clo­sure be­ing so far from Gran­ite House, it would not be the same with the poul­try-​yard, to which Neb called the at­ten­tion of the colonists. It was in­deed nec­es­sary that the birds should be close with­in reach of the cook, and no place ap­peared more fa­vor­able for the es­tab­lish­ment of the said poul­try-​yard than that por­tion of the banks of the lake which was close to the old open­ing.

Wa­ter-​birds would pros­per there as well as oth­ers, and the cou­ple of tina­mous tak­en in their last ex­cur­sion would be the first to be do­mes­ti­cat­ed.

The next day, the 3rd of Novem­ber, the new works were be­gun by the con­struc­tion of the bridge, and all hands were re­quired for this im­por­tant task. Saws, hatch­ets, and ham­mers were shoul­dered by the set­tlers, who, now trans­formed in­to car­pen­ters, de­scend­ed to the shore.

There Pen­croft ob­served,–

“Sup­pose, that dur­ing our ab­sence, Mas­ter Jup takes it in­to his head to draw up the lad­der which he so po­lite­ly re­turned to us yes­ter­day?”

“Let us tie its low­er end down firm­ly,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

This was done by means of two stakes se­cure­ly fixed in the sand. Then the set­tlers, as­cend­ing the left bank of the Mer­cy, soon ar­rived at the an­gle formed by the riv­er.

There they halt­ed, in or­der to as­cer­tain if the bridge could be thrown across. The place ap­peared suit­able.

In fact, from this spot, to Port Bal­loon, dis­cov­ered the day be­fore on the south­ern coast, there was on­ly a dis­tance of three miles and a half, and from the bridge to the Port, it would be easy to make a good cart-​road which would ren­der the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Gran­ite House and the south of the is­land ex­treme­ly easy.

Cyrus Hard­ing now im­part­ed to his com­pan­ions a scheme for com­plete­ly iso­lat­ing Prospect Heights so as to shel­ter it from the at­tacks both of quadrupeds and quadru­mana. In this way, Gran­ite House, the Chim­neys, the poul­try-​yard, and all the up­per part of the plateau which was to be used for cul­ti­va­tion, would be pro­tect­ed against the depre­da­tions of an­imals. Noth­ing could be eas­ier than to ex­ecute this project, and this is how the en­gi­neer in­tend­ed to set to work.

The plateau was al­ready de­fend­ed on three sides by wa­ter-​cours­es, ei­ther ar­ti­fi­cial or nat­ural. On the north­west, by the shores of Lake Grant, from the en­trance of the pas­sage to the breach made in the banks of the lake for the es­cape of the wa­ter.

On the north, from this breach to the sea, by the new wa­ter-​course which had hol­lowed out a bed for it­self across the plateau and shore, above and be­low the fall, and it would be enough to dig the bed of this creek a lit­tle deep­er to make it im­prac­ti­ca­ble for an­imals, on all the east­ern bor­der by the sea it­self, from the mouth of the afore­said creek to the mouth of the Mer­cy.

Last­ly, on the south, from the mouth to the turn of the Mer­cy where the bridge was to be es­tab­lished.

The west­ern bor­der of the plateau now re­mained be­tween the turn of the riv­er and the south­ern an­gle of the lake, a dis­tance of about a mile, which was open to all com­ers. But noth­ing could be eas­ier than to dig a broad deep ditch, which could be filled from the lake, and the over­flow of which would throw it­self by a rapid fall in­to the bed of the Mer­cy. The lev­el of the lake would, no doubt, be some­what low­ered by this fresh dis­charge of its wa­ters, but Cyrus Hard­ing had as­cer­tained that the vol­ume of wa­ter in the Red Creek was con­sid­er­able enough to al­low of the ex­ecu­tion of this project.

“So then,” added the en­gi­neer, “Prospect Heights will be­come a reg­ular is­land, be­ing sur­round­ed with wa­ter on all sides, and on­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the rest of our do­main by the bridge which we are about to throw across the Mer­cy, the two lit­tle bridges al­ready es­tab­lished above and be­low the fall; and, last­ly, two oth­er lit­tle bridges which must be con­struct­ed, one over the canal which I pro­pose to dig, the oth­er across to the left bank of the Mer­cy. Now, if these bridges can be raised at will, Prospect Heights will be guard­ed from any sur­prise.”

The bridge was the most ur­gent work. Trees were se­lect­ed, cut down, stripped of their branch­es, and cut in­to beams, joists, and planks. The end of the bridge which rest­ed on the right bank of the Mer­cy was to be firm, but the oth­er end on the left bank was to be mov­able, so that it might be raised by means of a coun­ter­poise, as some canal bridges are man­aged.

This was cer­tain­ly a con­sid­er­able work, and though it was skill­ful­ly con­duct­ed, it took some time, for the Mer­cy at this place was eighty feet wide. It was there­fore nec­es­sary to fix piles in the bed of the riv­er so as to sus­tain the floor of the bridge and es­tab­lish a pile-​driv­er to act on the tops of these piles, which would thus form two arch­es and al­low the bridge to sup­port heavy loads.

Hap­pi­ly there was no want of tools with which to shape the wood, nor of iron-​work to make it firm, nor of the in­ge­nu­ity of a man who had a mar­velous knowl­edge of the work, nor last­ly, the zeal of his com­pan­ions, who in sev­en months had nec­es­sar­ily ac­quired great skill in the use of their tools; and it must be said that not the least skil­ful was Gideon Spilett, who in dex­ter­ity al­most equaled the sailor him­self. “Who would ev­er have ex­pect­ed so much from a news­pa­per man!” thought Pen­croft.

The con­struc­tion of the Mer­cy bridge last­ed three weeks of reg­ular hard work. They even break­fast­ed on the scene of their labors, and the weath­er be­ing mag­nif­icent, they on­ly re­turned to Gran­ite House to sleep.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od it may be stat­ed that Mas­ter Jup grew more ac­cus­tomed to his new mas­ters, whose move­ments he al­ways watched with very in­quis­itive eyes. How­ev­er, as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, Pen­croft did not as yet al­low him com­plete lib­er­ty, right­ly wish­ing to wait un­til the lim­its of the plateau should be set­tled by the pro­ject­ed works. Top and Jup were good friends and played will­ing­ly to­geth­er, but Jup did ev­ery­thing solemn­ly.

On the 20th of Novem­ber the bridge was fin­ished. The mov­able part, bal­anced by the coun­ter­poise, swung eas­ily, and on­ly a slight ef­fort was need­ed to rise it; be­tween its hinge and the last cross-​bar on which it rest­ed when closed, there ex­ist­ed a space of twen­ty feet, which was suf­fi­cient­ly wide to pre­vent any an­imals from cross­ing.

The set­tlers now be­gan to talk of fetch­ing the bal­loon-​case, which they were anx­ious to place in per­fect se­cu­ri­ty; but to bring it, it would be nec­es­sary to take a cart to Port Bal­loon, and con­se­quent­ly, nec­es­sary to beat a road through the dense forests of the Far West. This would take some time. Al­so, Neb and Pen­croft hav­ing gone to ex­am­ine in­to the state of things at Port Bal­loon, and re­port­ed that the stock of cloth would suf­fer no dam­age in the grot­to where it was stored, it was de­cid­ed that the work at Prospect Heights should not be dis­con­tin­ued.

“That,” ob­served Pen­croft, “will en­able us to es­tab­lish our poul­try-​yard un­der bet­ter con­di­tions, since we need have no fear of vis­its from fox­es nor the at­tacks of oth­er beasts.”

“Then,” added Neb, “we can clear the plateau, and trans­plant wild plants to it.”

“And pre­pare our sec­ond corn-​field!” cried the sailor with a tri­umphant air.

In fact, the first corn-​field sown with a sin­gle grain had pros­pered ad­mirably, thanks to Pen­croft’s care. It had pro­duced the ten ears fore­told by the en­gi­neer, and each ear con­tain­ing eighty grains, the colony found it­self in pos­ses­sion of eight hun­dred grains, in six months, which promised a dou­ble har­vest each year.

These eight hun­dred grains, ex­cept fifty, which were pru­dent­ly re­served, were to be sown in a new field, but with no less care than was be­stowed on the sin­gle grain.

The field was pre­pared, then sur­round­ed with a strong pal­isade, high and point­ed, which quadrupeds would have found dif­fi­cul­ty in leap­ing. As to birds, some scare­crows, due to Pen­croft’s in­ge­nious brain, were enough to fright­en them. The sev­en hun­dred and fifty grains de­posit­ed in very reg­ular fur­rows were then left for na­ture to do the rest.

On the 21st of Novem­ber, Cyrus Hard­ing be­gan to plan the canal which was to close the plateau on the west, from the south an­gle of Lake Grant to the an­gle of the Mer­cy. There was there two or three feet of veg­etable earth, and be­low that gran­ite. It was there­fore nec­es­sary to man­ufac­ture some more ni­tro-​glyc­er­ine, and the ni­tro-​glyc­er­ine did its ac­cus­tomed work. In less than a fort­night a ditch, twelve feet wide and six deep, was dug out in the hard ground of the plateau. A new trench was made by the same means in the rocky bor­der of the lake, form­ing a small stream, to which they gave the name of Creek Glyc­er­ine, and which was thus an af­flu­ent of the Mer­cy. As the en­gi­neer had pre­dict­ed, the lev­el of the lake was low­ered, though very slight­ly. To com­plete the en­clo­sure the bed of the stream on the beach was con­sid­er­ably en­larged, and the sand sup­port­ed by means of stakes.

By the end of the first fort­night of De­cem­ber these works were fin­ished, and Prospect Heights–that is to say, a sort of ir­reg­ular pen­tagon, hav­ing a perime­ter of near­ly four miles, sur­round­ed by a liq­uid belt–was com­plete­ly pro­tect­ed from depreda­tors of ev­ery de­scrip­tion.

Dur­ing the month of De­cem­ber, the heat was very great. In spite of it, how­ev­er, the set­tlers con­tin­ued their work, and as they were anx­ious to pos­sess a poul­try-​yard they forth­with com­menced it.

It is use­less to say that since the en­clos­ing of the plateau had been com­plet­ed, Mas­ter Jup had been set at lib­er­ty. He did not leave his mas­ters, and evinced no wish to es­cape. He was a gen­tle an­imal, though very pow­er­ful and won­der­ful­ly ac­tive. He was al­ready taught to make him­self use­ful by draw­ing loads of wood and cart­ing away the stones which were ex­tract­ed from the bed of Creek Glyc­er­ine.

The poul­try-​yard oc­cu­pied an area of two hun­dred square yards, on the south­east­ern bank of the lake. It was sur­round­ed by a pal­isade, and in it were con­struct­ed var­ious shel­ters for the birds which were to pop­ulate it. These were sim­ply built of branch­es and di­vid­ed in­to com­part­ments, made ready for the ex­pect­ed guests.

The first were the two tina­mous, which were not long in hav­ing a num­ber of young ones; they had for com­pan­ions half a dozen ducks, ac­cus­tomed to the bor­ders of the lake. Some be­longed to the Chi­nese species, of which the wings open like a fan, and which by the bril­lian­cy of their plumage ri­val the gold­en pheas­ants. A few days af­ter­wards, Her­bert snared a cou­ple of gal­li­naceae, with spread­ing tails com­posed of long feath­ers, mag­nif­icent alec­tors, which soon be­came tame. As to pel­icans, king­fish­ers, wa­ter-​hens, they came of them­selves to the shores of the poul­try-​yard, and this lit­tle com­mu­ni­ty, af­ter some dis­putes, coo­ing, scream­ing, cluck­ing, end­ed by set­tling down peace­ful­ly, and in­creased in en­cour­ag­ing pro­por­tion for the fu­ture use of the colony.

Cyrus Hard­ing, wish­ing to com­plete his per­for­mance, es­tab­lished a pi­geon- house in a cor­ner of the poul­try-​yard. There he lodged a dozen of those pi­geons which fre­quent­ed the rocks of the plateau. These birds soon be­came ac­cus­tomed to re­turn­ing ev­ery evening to their new dwelling, and showed more dis­po­si­tion to do­mes­ti­cate them­selves than their con­geners, the wood- pi­geons.

Last­ly, the time had come for turn­ing the bal­loon-​case to use, by cut­ting it up to make shirts and oth­er ar­ti­cles; for as to keep­ing it in its present form, and risk­ing them­selves in a bal­loon filled with gas, above a sea of the lim­its of which they had no idea, it was not to be thought of.

It was nec­es­sary to bring the case to Gran­ite House, and the colonists em­ployed them­selves in ren­der­ing their heavy cart lighter and more man­age­able. But though they had a ve­hi­cle, the mov­ing pow­er was yet to be found.

But did there not ex­ist in the is­land some an­imal which might sup­ply the place of the horse, ass, or ox? That was the ques­tion.

“Cer­tain­ly,” said Pen­croft, “a beast of bur­den would be very use­ful to us un­til the cap­tain has made a steam cart, or even an en­gine, for some day we shall have a rail­road from Gran­ite House to Port Bal­loon, with a branch line to Mount Franklin!”

One day, the 23rd of De­cem­ber, Neb and Top were heard shout­ing and bark­ing, each ap­par­ent­ly try­ing to see who could make the most noise. The set­tlers, who were busy at the Chim­neys, ran, fear­ing some vex­atious in­ci­dent.

What did they see? Two fine an­imals of a large size that had im­pru­dent­ly ven­tured on the plateau, when the bridges were open. One would have said they were hors­es, or at least don­keys, male and fe­male, of a fine shape, dove-​col­ored, the legs and tail white, striped with black on the head and neck. They ad­vanced qui­et­ly with­out show­ing any un­easi­ness, and gazed at the men, in whom they could not as yet rec­og­nize their fu­ture mas­ters.

“These are on­agers!” cried Her­bert, “an­imals some­thing be­tween the ze­bra and the quag­ga!”

“Why not don­keys?” asked Neb.

“Be­cause they have not long ears, and their shape is more grace­ful!”

“Don­keys or hors­es,” in­ter­rupt­ed Pen­croft, “they are ‘mov­ing pow­ers,’ as the cap­tain would say, and as such must be cap­tured!”

The sailor, with­out fright­en­ing the an­imals, crept through the grass to the bridge over Creek Glyc­er­ine, low­ered it, and the on­agers were pris­on­ers.

Now, should they seize them with vi­olence and mas­ter them by force? No. It was de­cid­ed that for a few days they should be al­lowed to roam freely about the plateau, where there was an abun­dance of grass, and the en­gi­neer im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan to pre­pare a sta­ble near the poul­try-​yard, in which the on­agers might find food, with a good lit­ter, and shel­ter dur­ing the night.

This done, the move­ments of the two mag­nif­icent crea­tures were left en­tire­ly free, and the set­tlers avoid­ed even ap­proach­ing them so as to ter­ri­fy them. Sev­er­al times, how­ev­er, the on­agers ap­peared to wish to leave the plateau, too con­fined for an­imals ac­cus­tomed to the plains and forests. They were then seen fol­low­ing the wa­ter-​bar­ri­er which ev­ery­where pre­sent­ed it­self be­fore them, ut­ter­ing short neighs, then gal­lop­ing through the grass, and be­com­ing calmer, they would re­main en­tire hours gaz­ing at the woods, from which they were cut off for ev­er!

In the mean­time har­ness of veg­etable fiber had been man­ufac­tured, and some days af­ter the cap­ture of the on­agers, not on­ly the cart was ready, but a straight road, or rather a cut­ting, had been made through the forests of the Far West, from the an­gle of the Mer­cy to Port Bal­loon. The cart might then be driv­en there, and to­wards the end of De­cem­ber they tried the on­agers for the first time.

Pen­croft had al­ready coaxed the an­imals to come and eat out of his hand, and they al­lowed him to ap­proach with­out mak­ing any dif­fi­cul­ty, but once har­nessed they reared and could with dif­fi­cul­ty be held in. How­ev­er, it was not long be­fore they sub­mit­ted to this new ser­vice, for the on­ag­er, be­ing less re­frac­to­ry than the ze­bra, is fre­quent­ly put in har­ness in the moun­tain­ous re­gions of South­ern Africa, and it has even been ac­cli­ma­tized in Eu­rope, un­der zones of a rel­ative cool­ness.

On this day all the colony, ex­cept Pen­croft who walked at the an­imals’ heads, mount­ed the cart, and set out on the road to Port Bal­loon.

Of course they were jolt­ed over the some­what rough road, but the ve­hi­cle ar­rived with­out any ac­ci­dent, and was soon load­ed with the case and rig­ging of the bal­loon.

At eight o’clock that evening the cart, af­ter pass­ing over the Mer­cy bridge, de­scend­ed the left bank of the riv­er, and stopped on the beach. The on­agers be­ing un­har­nessed, were thence led to their sta­ble, and Pen­croft be­fore go­ing to sleep gave vent to his feel­ings in a deep sigh of sat­is­fac­tion that awoke all the echoes of Gran­ite House.